How to Get Great Ideas For Writing eHow Articles

To write eHow articles, you’ve already taken the first essential step! You have read an eHow article and/or joined the thriving eHow community. Now you want to start contributing articles that other eHow members and nonmembers alike will enjoy, learn from, and be able to apply in their own lives.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Intellectual curiosity
• A desire and willingness to be a lifelong learner
• The mindset of both a writer and an entrepreneur

1. When you write eHow articles, think of yourself as both a writer and an entrepreneur. This mindset will help you succeed, not only with writing effective and widely read eHow articles, but for any other type of freelance writing that you do. Remember, you want to write about what people want to read about, which means that you need to write engaging prose about “hot topics.”

2. Writers get inspiration everywhere: a phrase you read in the newspaper or hear on television or read on a message board forum may really grab your attention. Odds are, if it grabs your attention, it will also grab the attention of many other people. Write down that phrase and then slowly start building your eHow article around that interesting phrase or idea.

3. Ask your friends and relatives what they want you to research and write about in your eHow articles. You will find that many of the people in your life are positively brimming with excellent ideas and questions on a wide variety of topics.

4. You will also want to familiarize yourself with the concept of keywords, and consider building at least some of your eHow articles around popular keyword phrases that are frequently searched for on Google and other search engines. Think of a general topic you want to write about, and then type that phrase into the free Google Keyword Tool. Frequently searched keyword phrases pertaining to your topic will be listed. You could write an eHow article about any of these phrases that are of interest to you.

5. Remember, there will be some days when you are positively brimming with ideas for eHow articles, and others when you feel like you can't think of a single idea that you really like. And that's okay! It all balances out in the end. Go easy on yourself, and take pride in all that you have already accomplished, not only at eHow, but in general.

6. Whenever possible, try to jot down your ideas for eHow articles as they come to you. If you don't have a notebook and pen with you when you get a good idea, repeat the phrase you want to remember ten times out loud, as this is a good way to commit something to memory. Then write it down as as soon as you get the chance.

7. Whenever inspiration strikes, run with it! Do not wait! Strike while the iron is hot. Sometimes an eHow article seems to just sort of come to you, almost fully formed, and seemingly out of thin air. Whenever you are lucky enough to be "in the zone" like this with writing your eHow articles, get that first draft written as quickly as you can, knowing that you can always revise it later if necessary.

Tips & Warnings

• View yourself not only as a writer and entrepreneur (as mentioned in step one), but also as an investigative journalist. You want to research practical, helpful answers to people’s most pressing questions, and then you want to provide them with the answers to those questions by writing about them in an engaging, easily applicable way.
• Keep a close eye on which topics the eHow editors are requesting. If the editors want you to write about a given topic, this means that other people want to read about it. After all, they don’t pick these topics out of thin air. Rather, they pick eHow article topics based on feedback and questions that they have received on certain subjects.

[rumblebug]

on 1/12/2009 Staying motivated when you are out of ideas is very difficult but I like the idea of the entrepenuer/writer! Great article :)

[TheWriterLady]

on 1/12/2009 These are some good ideas. It can be hard to come up with writing ideas sometimes and then other times, you just can't stop.

[phreed83]

on 1/11/2009 Good ideas - well written piece

[Arathi]

on 1/11/2009 I love tip 1, the idea of viewing ourselves as writers and entrepreneurs! Also didn't think about asking friends and relatives. Very helpful, and well written article. Thanks!

[PositivelyWrite]

on 1/11/2009 Great tips! Thanks! 5* You've been recommended!